


Natural Laws

by Argyle



Category: Good Omens
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-09-29
Updated: 2005-09-29
Packaged: 2019-02-11 19:59:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,022
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12942642
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Argyle/pseuds/Argyle
Summary: Every object in the Universe attracts every other object. (Lincolnshire, 1665)





	Natural Laws

“No,” Crowley said, shaking his head. He tightened his grip on an overhanging branch and pushed himself back towards the trunk. “I can’t reach it.”

Aziraphale appeared to consider this. His legs dangled over the bough, swinging gently, and his cheeks were flushed. “What about that one?” He pointed to an apple several feet behind Crowley’s shoulder. It was rather squat, but very red; its pristine surface glinted in the scattered sunlight. “If you lean back just a bit, and balance...”

Crowley shook his head again, and took a sip of wine. “It has a worm in.”

“How do you know? It looks most _awfully_ well.”

“On the outside, maybe, but it’s holey in the center.”

“Ah.” Aziraphale grimaced. “Anyway, as I was saying, old Gabriel was in my shop the other day. He’s had a bit of a strain on his daybook these past years, what with all of these ghastly--,” he paused to refill his glass, taking care to steady the bottle on a heavy knot in the branch that he was perched upon, “--and, well, _you_ know how he can get these days.”

“I don’t, actually,” Crowley said, offhandedly.

“It’s all a matter of patience, really. The old chap has a rather dastardly sense of humor. Wanted to know whether I had heard about Milton. _Well_. I’ve rather moved away from that sort of thing, and at that point I really couldn’t help but tell him so, and that he knew what I meant. And he did, of course.”

“Mm.”

“He stayed for tea.”

Crowley arched a brow. A leaf settled into the crease of his collar, and he swatted at it with the back of his hand. “Did he?” he asked, after a moment.

Aziraphale smiled confidingly. “One must be civil.”

“I hope it was from the tea-tin that you keep beneath the chest of drawers to discourage the mice from gnawing on your manuscripts.”

“Really, my dear. You don’t really think I’d serve Gabriel the Bishop’s Blend, do you? It tastes like an especially bog-ridden cup of Welsh peat.”

“He thought it delicious, did he?”

“Like a summer’s day,” Aziraphale mumbled over the lip of his glass. “Or a song most rhapsodical and fair.”

“He always did have a way with words,” Crowley said, dryly. He threw back the rest of his wine, handed his glass to the belatedly-baffled angel, and began to pull himself up.

A bobbing bunch of apples hung behind Aziraphale’s head, and so Crowley took two hesitant steps forward, carefully guiding himself along with a white-knuckled grip: it was a rather long way down. He bowed precariously close to Aziraphale’s supine form and the newly-refilled bottle of wine, glanced up, and leaned against the trunk for support. “Ngk,” he said, grazing the apples with the tips of his fingers.

“Are you all right?” Aziraphale asked, any lingering consternation in his voice suddenly overcome by laughter. “If you’d like, I could move over a bit, or--”

“Just hold still.” Crowley pushed an apple into his pocket, and it settled against the lining with a pleasant heft. “You’re the one who wanted these.”

“I wouldn’t have mentioned it if I had known it would be a bother. In fact, I... Oh, _dear_.”

“What is it?” Crowley glanced down. “Angel?”

Aziraphale made no answer, but leaned forward as though straining to hear a distant sound. “Shh,” he said, after a moment, and then: “Do you hear that? I think someone’s coming.”

In fact, the sound was not very distant at all.

It was almost, but not quite, a whistle, so without care for melody or form did it romp across the scale. There were footsteps beneath the tree, followed by the flutter of loose pages, and a dully-nibbed pen sputtering across coarse paper. A young man settled between bough and roots, his legs crossed before him; his whistle became a whisper.

“Universal constant... acceleration... magnitude.”

“Crowley! He’s speaking in tongues,” Aziraphale hissed. “Whose country house did you say this was?”

“Edmund Wharton’s. Rather tense sort of fellow, deals in timber.” An apple slipped from Crowley’s pocket and fell to the ground with thump. “He’s supposed to be in the Americas right now, increasing his fortune.” Crowley smiled. “He’ll stay there if my people have anything to say about it.”

“Indeed?” Aziraphale pushed himself up against the bough, causing Crowley to slide swiftly atop him.

It was not at all a soft landing.

The tree shuddered. Leaves scattered, autumn songbirds twittered, and wine drizzled through the branches as though by the grace of Providence. Another apple tumbled from Crowley’s pocket; the sound of its fall was decidedly hollow.

“I say!” piped the voice from below.

Crowley inhaled and shot a glance at Aziraphale. “Not a word,” he whispered hoarsely.

A moment passed, and then another.

“I think he’s gone,” Aziraphale said.

“He hasn’t.”

“Yes, well.” He cleared his throat lightly. “You’ve wine on your shirt, my dear, and it’s bleeding onto mine.”

Crowley raised himself up. There was a long, ruddy splotch across his chest, and the mirrored impression of a long, ruddy splotch across Aziraphale’s. “Where’s the bottle?” he asked dejectedly.

“Here.” Aziraphale dashed his hand beneath him, and then to the side; the bottle was wedged between the v-shaped talons of a low-hanging bough. “Just a bit to the left--”

“You there s-sir!” came the voice again. “I know you are there, and if you do not come d-down this instant, I shall have to set my dog upon you! H-he is tr-trained to attack.”

With a sigh, Crowley made his way to the foot of the tree. Climbing down, he decided, was a dashed improvement over climbing up, especially as the latter had involved balancing both the bottle of wine and glasses, and an angel who was one short of bloody drunk. That he and Aziraphale should discover themselves to be lounging in an aged apple tree came as less surprise than it perhaps ought to have. Aziraphale had declared it charming.

Crowley brushed himself off, adjusted his wide-brimmed hat, and smiled. “Hi,” he said with carefully articulated distinctness.

The young man’s scowl stretched between the tawny lace of his collar and the jaunty angle of his wig. He clenched the apple in one fist, and a leather-bound folio in the other. “What d-do you think you are doing, sir?” He seemed to be staring at a point over Crowley’s shoulder, and then amended stiffly, “Sirs.”

Aziraphale tapped the side of his nose as he came to Crowley’s side. “What are you reading, my dear fellow?”

A pause. “I am categorizing the p-properties of optics.”

“ _Real_ -ly?” Aziraphale held his hands together. “Well, that does sound _quite_ interesting.”

“Yes.” The young man paused again, glancing between them, and held up the apple. “This collided with my h-head. It is an insult to Nature. I demand s-satisfaction!”

“You can’t be serious,” Crowley said. “This is Ed Wharton’s land, is it not?”

“No. _Colonel_ Wharton lives to the other s-side of the river when he is away from the city, but I have not s-seen him these last six months.”

“Ah.” Crowley looked at Aziraphale, who was smiling broadly. “And you are?”

The man stomped his foot impatiently. “That is none of your concern, sir.”

“It is if I’m to fight you.”

A pause. “N-newton.”

“Ah,” Crowley said again, and then, coaxingly: “What are your findings?”

“Findings?”

“Relating to optics.”

“Well, it is all f-fairly simple. The visible spectrum of light corresponds...” He cut himself off with a frown. “I will not be d-dissuaded from my course. Will you fight?”

“Did you lecture at--,” Crowley paused, glanced over the ruffled state of Newton’s clothes, and then ventured, “--Trinity College last year?”

“Yes,” Newton said, taken aback. “Were you in attendance?”

“Certainly I was,” Crowley said, and placed his hand on Aziraphale’s shoulder. “My associate holds a mighty passion for such topics.”

Newton narrowed his eyes. “Is this true, sir?”

“Er.” Aziraphale bit his lip.

“As do I,” Crowley said. “We thought your hypothesis very profound.”

“Y-you did?”

“It quite put the other fellow to shame.”

“Ha! You s-say so, but I do not th-think... Well. S-simms _does_ at times have a rather narrow understanding of things. His telescopes all h-have spots on.” Newton’s smile began to fade. “But we are straying from the b-business at hand, sir. I will not be flattered. Will you fight?” he repeated.

“I would not dare strike down one of the most eminent natural philosophers of our time,” Crowley said. “Please, may I ask you to explain your current thesis on... optics?”

“Why, of course. C-consider the apple,” Newton said, and held it aloft in the palm of his hand. “Is it actually r-red, or does one just perceive it to be red? The apple m-must needs absorb all of light’s colors but red to appear red. The quality of the color is therefore determined by the q-quality of the light which st-strikes the apple.”

“Yes,” Crowley said, with great difficulty. “Yes. That was the thesis I had in mind.”

Newton nodded self-assuredly.

“And... This is _your_ land?” Aziraphale asked.

“It is. This apple, my apple; this tree, my tree; and that d-dog,” he pointed to an overweight spaniel languishing beneath the shade of an astrolabe-shaped topiary, “my dog.”

Crowley gave Aziraphale a sidelong glance.

“The heart of a poet,” Aziraphale said under his breath.

“Or the spleen of one,” Crowley countered.

Newton took a long step forward. “Which still does n-not explain what you are doing here, sirs. I daresay I have no re-recollection of inviting you.”

“Oh.” Crowley frowned, pulling another apple out of his pocket. He tossed it into the air, and then waited for the sound of its fall some feet away. “As luck would have it, my associate and I are also natural philosophers. We are here to conduct experiments relating to gravitational forces.”

“Gravitational forces?” Aziraphale and Newton said at the same time.

“Yes, yes,” Crowley continued, gaining confidence. He caught Newton’s eye. “Everything that goes up... must come down.”

Newton blinked once, twice, and then smiled slowly. “You m-mean to say: e-every object in the Universe attracts every other object with a f-force d-directed along the line of centers for the two objects that is... is p-proportional to the product of their masses.”

It was Crowley’s turn to blink. “Certainly that’s what I meant,” he said, and jabbed his elbow into Aziraphale’s side. Aziraphale continued to titter.

“Well.” Newton’s smile grew. “I thought of that d- _days_ ago.”

“Yes, but did you know that it would be _inversely_ proportional to the square of the separation of the two objects?”

Newton blanched. “S-square of the separation?”

“That’s right,” Crowley said, languorously. He patted Newton on the shoulder and tugged on Aziraphale’s sleeve. “I’m afraid we ought to be leaving. The work of a natural philosopher is so unceasingly exciting, you know.” He winked confidingly; Newton shuddered. “My associate and I must go into town to lecture on the inherent qualities of grapes.”

“But will you not stay awhile, sirs? I should very m-much like to s-speak to you.”

“I’m sorry. It will have to be another day.”

“Yes, of c-course.” Newton nodded, hugging his folio against his chest. He raised a hand to straighten his wig, and held it in a gesture of farewell as Crowley and Aziraphale stepped together across his lawn.

When they were some feet away, Aziraphale said, “Really, Crowley. You oughtn’t to have put such an idea in his head. He’ll never sleep.”

“It was what he wanted.” Crowley shrugged, and after a moment continued, “A tanner says he’ll be knighted by the end of the century.”

“Make it a half-crown.” Aziraphale held out his hand.

Crowley placed an apple in it; he buffed his own across the parted brocade of his lapel. It was small and round, and the firm curve of its skin seemed infused with light. At any moment, it might have burst into flame. When he bit into it, it seemed to him that he could taste every color that it had absorbed: every color but red.


End file.
